Bite My Tongue
by LizzyIsAPLLeek
Summary: And in that moment, Lauren knew she had two options. She could tell Daryl what she knew she would have to eventually, or she could bite her tongue. And right now, biting her tongue, despite the pain of it, sounded a lot better than speaking to the man that would never love her back.
1. Chapter 1: I Don't Mind

_**My blood runs red from the streets to the sewers, to the blue black ocean, I'm caught in the tide but I don't mind if you don't mind. I wash away the filth of the city, and I lose myself right here before your eyes, but I don't mind if you don't mind...**_

_**Disclaimer: Of course I own AMC's The Walking Dead, I also own every other show on AMC, and I also, also own the entirety of the United States of America, and the likes of Barack Obama.**_

**Prologue. **

Her whole body shook with as she cried, her hands shaking as she lifted the test to her face, still finding herself unable to look as she dropped her hand to her side again, more tears rolling down her cheeks.

There was a loud bang on the bathroom door, and a loud voice asking for her. "Lauren? Are you okay in there? You've been in there for ages!" Andrea called.

Lauren let out a shaky breath that she wasn't aware she was holding in, before sniffing quietly. "Yeah, I'm fine!" She called back, before standing up, and flushing the toilet, walking over to the sink, leaving the test on the side of the bath.

She turned the tap on, the cold water soaking her dry hands, the chapped skin sore and bleeding as she scrubbed the soap gently on them. Another soft sigh tumbled out of her mouth, as she looked up into the mirror in the cupboard above the sink. In that moment, Lauren didn't even think she looked like herself, because in truth, she didn't.

She looked scared. Fragile. Sad. Three things she hadn't looked like since Rick went missing, the only person she could trust, her brother. If he was here, she'd have told him about her thoughts, about how scared she was, and he would have told her to stop being stupid, and then have installed her with a bit of confidence, and right now that was what she needed.

She needed to be strong, not scared and shutting herself away in the RV's bathroom. Lauren sucked in a deep breath, before letting her hands grab the test, shoving it inside of her jeans pockets, opening the bathroom door, giving her face a once over, before stepping outside into the scorching hot Atlanta air, she hopped off of the doorway entrance, slamming the RV door shut.

"You alright?" Lori asked her sister-in-law, giving her a small smile, knowing that Lauren was hurting equally, if not more, as much as she was by the death of Rick.

Lauren nodded. "Of course." She forced herself to smile, before there was a loud crackling coming from the C.B radio, Amy rushed over, lifting it to her mouth as it continued to crackle continuously before a loud, distorted voice cracked through.

"_Hello? Can anybody hear my voice?" _ A deep male voice crackled through the speakers of the C.B radio, Lauren's ears perked up as she rushed over to where Amy was standing with a crowd of people around her, attempting to listen to the C.B.

"Yes, yes! We can hear you!" Amy said, her voice excited yet calm at the same time, as she awaited a reply from the mysterious man with the deep voice on the radio.

"_If anybody can hear me, please respond!_" The male voice persistently crackled on, clearly unable to hear the replies that Amy was sending through to him. "_Broadcasting on emergency channel, will be approaching Atlanta, on Highway 85. If anybody reads, please respond!_" The voice continued to drone on, the sound of it like a bee buzzing in Lauren's ears.

There were others. Not just the small group that she now thought of as family. Another person out there, looking for help.

"We're just outside the-" Amy's voice stopped as the crackling slowly died down, to a less persistent crackle every few seconds. "Shit." She cussed, turning dials on the radio in an attempt to raise the man again, but to no avail.

"Give it her." Lauren said, as Amy handed her the C.B radio, frantically turning the dials.

Shane sighed, looking over at Lauren. "Lauren, give it up, okay? We're not raising him, whoever it was." His voice shook as he looked at the sad looking girl as she couldn't bring back the man on the radio.

"I'm not giving up, what if this man has Rick? Or better yet, what if it was Rick? I couldn't properly make out his voice and-" Lauren's voice cracked, as tears slid down her cheeks. She turned to Shane, shoving the radio into his hands. "Try and contact him, Shane. Please. You know how to work this thing better than any of us."

Shane looked over at Lori, as she lifted her head, their eyes catching. Lori gave him a small nod, before mouthing 'Please'. Shane sighed, before hitting a button on the machine. "This is officer Shane Walsh, broadcasting to an unknown person that tried to contact us moments ago, are you still there? I repeat, are you still there?" Shane spoke, boldly.

Lauren looked at Shane expectantly, before Shane shook his head. "He's gone." He pocketed the C.B radio, before looking down at the ground. "Sorry, Lauren. I know you still want Rick to be out there." He said, softly.

"But you know what this means, right?" Andrea said, walking over to her best friend, giving Lauren a small, comforting smile. "There's others out there. It's not just us."

"We suspected it, though, Andrea. Hence the reason we left the C.B on." Shane said.

Andrea rolled her eyes. "We didn't suspect it, we were hoping that the entire world hadn't gone to crap and that there were others out there, not just us few survivors. The other Grimes could be out there, y'know. We don't know. It still could have been him out there."

Shane sighed, before hissing. "Just drop it, Andrea." And he stalked away to the tents to get some sleep for the night.

Lauren turned to Andrea. "I'm going to go to bed, Andy." She mumbled, before pushing Andrea gently away from her shaking body. Lauren's feet bounced against the floor as she walked back over to the RV. She quickly looked behind her to check that no one was looking as she slipped the test out of her pocket, placing her foot against the paddle of the bin, and chucking it inside.

It was probably negative anyway.


	2. Chapter 2: Talk To Me

_**Game after game we play our twisted snakes and ladders, time for the rules to change. You're in my arteries, your bolting through my body, I'll never be the same. So why won't you talk to me? Why won't you just talk to me? There's a universe inside your head, constellation's are the things you've left unsaid, talk to me, or watch me leave. **_

Lauren hurriedly pushed the RV door open, unable to get the smell of the cooking fish from last night out of her head, and it made her want to puke her guts up. She rushed round to the back of the RV, where no one would look for her, as she began to gag and puke up everything she had eaten, which was very little, the night before.

There was a loud cough behind her, causing Lauren to spin around to face Daryl, his face scrunched up in disgust. "Might wan'a clean that up." He said, his voice gruff, the way it always was in the mornings.

Lauren rolled her eyes, before saluting him. "Aye, aye captain." She mumbled, sarcastically, as she pressed her palms up against the back of the RV again, taking deep, jagged breaths as she felt herself began to heave again, more nausea falling over her.

Daryl's eyebrows furrowed in confusion as he polished the arrows for his crossbow, feeling the urge to help her, but not wanting to be too forward. Whenever he tried to show his feelings it always went wrong in someway, so instead of helping, he rolled his eyes, before stalking off away from Lauren.

Lauren closed her eyes, taking more deep jagged breaths trying to calm down the nauseating feeling, before sinking onto the floor, her eyes scanning the pile of vomit next to her, which made her gag even more. "LAUREN?" She heard a loud voice yell, belonging to no one other than Andrea.

Lauren sighed, keeping quiet to herself behind the RV, Andrea wouldn't know where she was. But she knew she couldn't camp out behind the RV all day, there was more open crawlspace for walkers behind here, and she couldn't chance being bitten, especially with not knowing the results to that test, although she was pretty positive that it was negative.

But that didn't explain why she was three weeks late, although she had been under a lot of stress lately.

_It's probably stress, Lauren, stop freaking out. You can always rifle through the trash later on when everyone goes out hunting. _

She thought to herself, as she hauled herself up, and walking out from behind the RV, only to catch Daryl and Andrea conversing. The sight of it made her feel even more nauseated.

"Oh, there you are Lauren!" She said, her voice sounding a little bit softer than usual as she walked over and grabbed my wrist, hauling me over to the other side of the camp, her eyebrows furrowed with worry as she looked at me, before digging into her jeans pockets and producing the plastic stick that Lauren was sure that she had buried behind her last night. "What is thi-" Andy was cut off by a loud squeal as the gate swung open on the other side of the camp.

Lauren's head looked up from the ground, happy that something had happened to keep from Andrea asking the question, although she knew that Andy knew exactly what that test in her hand was. "Rick?" Lauren gasped, as she saw the familar mop of brown curls on her brothers head. "Oh my god, Rick!" She screamed as she ran over to him, and into his arms, sobs wracking her body.

"Yeah, lil' sister. I'm here." He whispered, stroking my hair off of my face. "What's wrong, Lo?" He asked, quietly.

I shook my head. "I'm just so happy to see you, that's all."

Andrea marched up. "Hi, Rick, nice to meet you, I'm Andrea, and I need to talk to your sister." She eyed him, as he wrapped his arms around his sister tighter. "Alone." She added.

"There's nothing you can say to Lauren that you can't say to me as well, Andrea." Rick smiled, still not letting go of his sister, feeling a sudden overwhelming sensation of overprotectiveness of her around this Andrea girl.

Andrea sighed. "Fine, I didn't want to have to do this." She dug back in her pockets, before reproducing the test. "Why was there a pregnancy test, let alone a _positive one, _in your trash can, Lauren?"


	3. Chapter 3: Angels On The Moon

_**Do you dream that the world will know your name? So tell me your name. And do you care, about all the little things, or anything at all. I wanna feel all the chemicals inside, I wanna feel. I wanna sunburn, just to know that I'm alive, to know I'm alive. Don't tell me if I'm dying, 'cause I don't wanna know, if I can't see the sun, then maybe I should go, don't wake me if I'm dreaming of angels on the moon, where every one you know never leaves too soon. **_

Lauren's mouth dropped agape, her heart pounding so hard against her ribcage she thought it was going to explode out of her chest. "That's not mine." She lied, her voice quivering as she spoke. She pushed her hands into her pockets, trying to disguise that they were shaking like leaves.

"Then why was it in _your _trash can, Lauren?" Andrea said, her voice becoming more aggravated now.

Lauren's lip began to quiver, scaredly. "I'm not pregnant." She whispered. "I can't be."

Andrea's heart broke with those last few words. She pocketed the test, trying to blink back her own tears at the sight of her friend in so much pain. "Okay. We'll just talk about this later."

Lauren looked down at her boots, tapping them together as if doing that would make this world a better place, a better place to be having a kid, to raise a kid. That's when it hit her like a tonne of bricks. Her child would grow up with heartbreak, and loss. "Andrea, can we talk alone?" She asked, quietly.

Andrea nodded. "Of course."

Lauren grabbed Andrea's hand, tugging her into the RV, slamming the door shut, and locking it tightly behind her, pocketing the keys. "Fine, I am pregnant. But you didn't have to freaking bring it up suddenly, you could have waited to get me alone!" She cried, exasperated.

Andy closed her eyes, tightly. "Whose the dad? Please tell me that it's not Shane." She blew out a loud breath, as Lauren shook her head, biting on her lip nervously. "Oh my god, it's not Ed's, is it?"

"God, no!" Lauren hissed. "I'm not a homewrecker, Andrea! I can't believe you even think about me like that! I'm not that type of person to go around sleeping with other people's husbands. And before you even think about it, I did not go around sleeping with my brother either, or that Korean bloke he brought home with him."

"But that only leaves-" Andrea's breath caught in her throat, as she shook her head. "No, Lauren. Tell me you didn't." She begged.

"Didn't what?" Lauren whispered, sitting down on the couches in the RV, tears falling down her cheeks. "Andrea, tell me what I did wrong?"

"Please, tell me you didn't have sex with that redneck!" Andrea mumbled, before sitting down opposite Lauren.

Tears rolled down her cheeks as she looked up at Andrea, her heart thumping against her ribs, so hard that it hurt. "I was lonely. I'd just watched my best friend be bitten and killed, and Rick had gone missing." Lauren blew out a breath that she hadn't realised she had been holding in, as she let her elbows find the table, as she hid her face behind her hands, sobs wracking her fragile body, as Andrea onlooked the mess that was her friend.

"It didn't mean anything, if that's what you're worried about. It was a meaningless one night stand too take away the pain of Rick and Daren, okay? I wasn't trying to get knocked up, I wouldn't want my kid to grow up in this environment." Lauren said, her voice muffled behind her hands.

Andrea laughed, halfheartedly. "Well, I don't think you can do much about that now, hun." She stood up, ruffling Lauren's hair. "We better get back out, Rick's going to be worried."

Lauren nodded. "I'll be out in a minute." She whispered, removing her hands from her face as Andrea walked out, slamming the RV door shut behind her.

Lauren stood up, walking over to the bathroom. She plonked on the side of the bath, lifting her shirt with shaking hands. She looked down at her still flat stomach. Her hand left one side of the bath, and sat comfortably on her belly. "Hey, baby." She whispered, quietly. "I'm your mom."


End file.
